Wednesday, July 18, 2018

The Research Monster, or Down the Rabbit Hole Part Two

by Janis Patterson

My name is Janis Susan and I am a research geek.

Last week on the Ladies of Mystery blog I wrote about the
necessity and moral imperative of accurate research in our writing. Once it was
finished, though, I realized it told only half the story. Well, I realized it before
I was finished, but just how long can you make a blog piece? It's a blog, not a
novel!

So, I decided to carry on here and talk about the
irresistible seductiveness of research. Currently I am working on a novella
where the more research I do, the more I need to do... and even more I want to
do. The book is part of a Christmas anthology set in Regency England, and while
it has a mystery in it, it's primarily a romance. (Hey, we have to take the
contracts as they come, don't we?)

As you probably know, I'm a dedicated pantser. That does not
mean I don't have a bare-bones sketch of the book in my head that I might - or
might not - follow. It's a starting point. The trouble with this is that while
it's okay to think 'the heroine creeps out of the house and goes to a coaching
inn where she catches a mail coach north to begin a new life, but ends up
hiding from the villain in a church.' Reasonable sketch of proposed action,
isn't it?

Ha! First, I need to decide which city she is heading for
and how much she can afford to pay for a ticket out of her scanty funds (like
all good romance heroines she has little/no money). Then I have to decide which
London coaching inn serves that particular route, is there a church nearby and
which church is it? For that matter, did the stage coaches run at night? Believe
me, most readers of Regency romance/mystery are dedicated enough to know this
kind of thing and will eat any writer alive who doesn't get the details right!

Thanks to the blessings of the internet it's not all that
difficult to get enough information to be accurate in just a short time. Thanks
to the curse of the internet it's far too easy to search on and on, getting
just one more bit of information to increase your verisimilitude until you
aren't really researching at all, you're just enjoying reading.

Like last night. I had gone as far as I could without more
research in one of the climactic scenes building to the big finish, so I kept looking.
The Husband asked if I wasn't going to come to the TV, as one of our favorite
programs was on. Without even raising my head I said I'd come, I just needed
another minute or two. An hour or so later he came back to say it had been a
good program, but now it was time for another of our favorites to start. This
time I did raise my head, frowned mightily and told him I had told him I just
needed a few more minutes. (He's used to me - we do this regularly.) Finally he
came back to tell me he was going to bed and was I coming. You've got it. I
told him (this time without frowns, as I was too tired to frown) that I'd be
along in a few minutes, I just needed one more reference...

I finally got to bed around two, but I did find everything I
needed, and it's all extremely real. The London coaching inn is The Swan With
Two Necks, the church is St. Lawrence Jewry rebuilt after the Great Fire of
1666 by Christopher Wren, the destination town is Coventry. I know why the inn
has such a strange name, what is remarkable about St. Lawrence Jewry (and how
it got that odd appellation) and yes, the coaches did run at night.

All for a small, three page scene, hardly more than a
transition from one plot point to another.

However... I firmly believe that all knowledge is useful.
Sometime I might write a book where some of this extraneous information is
crucial. I might not remember it by that time, but I will probably remember
that it exists, and have a vague idea of where to find it. Then I will have the
sublime pleasure of going back down the rabbit hole one more time, probably
finding more fascinating facts that I missed this last time. It's inevitable.

4 comments:

The thing about the internet is that the research isn't always accurate. You have to double check on the posts. Whereas it's more likely to be accurate when you use reference books which have footnotes. I once used a so-called reliable book source though, written by a well-known academic authority, and when I checked his original source found his reference to be inaccurate. You never know.